Almost No One
by Unrelated Elephant
Summary: [Xenocide] A girl on Path reflects on the plague that claimed her mother as it purified the planet, and the Gods who ostensibly sent it.


_Almost No One_

Disclaimer: The world Path and her circumstances are the property of Orson Scott Card. As he asserts that use of his characters by fanfic authors is stealing from his children, I humbly offer readers Li-Ming and her family as my own creation.

* * *

The holo news report had said the plague sent by the Gods had killed "almost no one." Li-Ming sometimes wondered if that was supposed to mean that those who had died had been no-ones to the Gods. It seemed that they were no-ones to the rest of Path – funerals were held, but it seemed the overall mood was celebration - celebration not of the lives of the deceased, not that they had gone to join the Gods. 

_It is unworthy of me to think such thoughts,_ she told herself firmly. _It is disrespectful to the Gods, to do other than celebrate their gift. _But it was one thing to say that, and another to believe it, and her heart still struggled to bear the loss of her mother.

She shook her head. There was still shopping to be done, mother would have pointed out. Grieve later, she would have said, if she'd been there to say it. Your sister, Li-Rong, is still recovering, and needs foods that are easy on the stomach.

"I know, mother," she whispered, as the bus stopped at the market.

The paved lot – used for parking by those who had their own vehicles – was surprisingly crowded with people. They surrounded a man, one of the local Godspoken, who stood on a crate, orating.

"The plague sent by the Gods purified us," the man, one of the Godspoken, explained to the assembled crowd, as if they hadn't already heard the news broadcast, as if they hadn't already heard of the miracle that released the Godspoken from their rituals. "We are all pure, now, in the eyes of the Gods."

Li-Ming thought about this, blinking back tears as she pushed past the crowd into the market building. Had mother died of purification because she was too impure to survive, or had she been so pure the Gods could do no more to purify her than take her to the Heavens with them?

Her vision was still blurry as she picked out cans of clear broth, but her breathing was steady and even by the time she turned down the next isle. Her control was threatened when she reached the fresh produce – how many times had Mother called her and Li-Rong over, telling them how to select the best broccoli, cabbage, or bean sprouts? "We already know," they would say, half-complaining. But that was part of the game, and all knew it – "Prove it to me, then," Mother would say, and all three would pick through the heaped vegetables to find something acceptable.

She paid for her purchases at checkout, wondering if in the future, Li-Rong would soon start hanging on _her_ arm, as she had Mother's, begging for candy or a cracker or balloon from the impulse items near the register.

The crowd had thinned somewhat in the lot outside, but the man still spoke. "All is decided by the Gods," he said. "They weighed Path, and found her worthy, and sent us the plague to purify us." Across the street, a group of old women sat outside a tea parlor, nodding seriously and frowning over their tea.

An image of the Gods, gathered like those old women to discuss the fate of Path, stayed with Li-Ming on the bus ride home. The Royal Mother of the West at their head, all the Gods assembled to decide whether or not to send the plague. Had they discussed whether it was worth it to send the plague, when some would die? Had they even decided who would be taken and who would remain? Had the Royal Mother herself said, "The mother of Li-Ming and Li-Rong is too pure for Path, let her join us?" Or had her name and her death remained unspoken by the Gods, as they had remained silent to her in life?

_They must have. Mother's name must have been spoken by them, and the names of all the other dead,_ she thought suddenly, fiercely. _They chose to bring them to them early. The rest of us are pure now, but Mother and the rest must have been pure before, even if they hadn't been Godspoken. They spoke her name,_ she repeated, a mantra. It would have been too much to bear to think the Gods had not given thought to those whom the plague would kill, that the Royal Mother Si Wang-Mu would not ask, "Is it right to kill some, as we free the Godspoken from what Congress has done, give inborn wisdom to others?"

Because if they hadn't, if she hadn't, then Mother and the rest were truly No One, to the Gods and the people of Path.


End file.
